Want to work with Paul Newman and celebrity racers? Set aside 15 hours per day, your temper, and your ego, then expect never to sit down, eat, or get a decent night's sleep.

Wednesday, 9 a.m.: Fifty-six-year-old Peter Murphy is backing a red, black, and chrome 515-hp Prevost coach into a narrow, reserved corner of the paddock for the Long Beach Grand Prix. It's not easy. The $1.2 million custom coach — never call it a "bus" — is 45 feet long but is towing a matching red, black, and chrome custom kitchen that weighs 21,000 pounds. The two-piece rig extends just over 70 feet.

Behind the coach, helping Peter navigate, stands his wife, Mary-Lin, 48. Well, she's supposed to be helping. Instead, she's hugging Laura Cooper, 28, and Jeannie Shetler, 31, tall and muscular Wisconsin residents and former waitresses at Siebkens Resort in Elkhart Lake. This foursome — Peter, Mary-Lin, Laura, and Jeannie — comprise the Newman/Haas Racing hospitality crew. In the next five days, they must be able to cook as many as 469 hot meals for the mechanics, VIPs, sponsors, and friends of Paul Newman and Carl Haas. And that doesn't include breakfasts for four days — cereals and pastries, what Mary-Lin describes as "extensive continental."

"I used to get sick before the races," she says. But Mary-Lin and Peter are now in their 23rd year of managing NHR's hospitality tent. "We've pretty much learned to solve at least the routine disasters."

The foursome erects a 35-by-45-foot white tent that extends from the starboard side of the coach, and they lay down gray carpet. Jeannie vacuums it, as well as the Prevost's mahogany floors, then wipes down its brown granite countertops. Laura stocks food into three refrigerators — two in the kitchen, one in the coach — while Peter washes every inch of the Prevost's exterior just in time for a downpour. Waiting for the rain to cease, he and Laura disinfect the kitchen floor, then Peter emerges into the sunlight to wash the coach. Again.

11:30 a.m.: Peter, Jeannie, and Laura set up a 25-foot-long buffet table, six serving tables, eight dining tables with red-and-black linen tablecloths, and 56 folding chairs. Then they set up awnings, umbrellas, electric fans, and chrome stanchions to exclude interlopers. Mary-Lin has driven into town in the crew's rented Dodge van to pick up "a few things we forgot on the way down" — dozens of boxes of Oreos and Pringles, two 10-pound boxes of tortilla chips, 20 pounds of Famous Amos cookies, 10 pounds of Hershey brownies, 144 Nature Valley bars, 10 pounds of salsa, six jars of almonds, two gallons of olive oil, 10 pounds of peanut butter. Upon returning, she realizes she's forgotten carrots and croutons, so she climbs back into the van.

11:45 a.m.: Jeannie stocks six 50-gallon ice chests with soft drinks, bottled water, and fruit juices, covering them with six 50-pound bags of ice that Peter has delivered on the back of a red-and-black golf cart with chrome American Racing wheels. He then drives the cart to one of two refrigerated 18-wheelers already parked in the paddock, property of U.S. Foodservice, from whom the teams have ordered their entrées as much as two months prior. Inside the trucks are hundreds of boxes, each bearing scrawled initials — DCR for Dale Coyne Racing, FR for Forsythe Racing, NHR for Peter. "It's all filet mignons, salmon, beef tenderloins, and Cornish hens," he says, his breath forming a cloud of condensation. "No hot dogs." The trucks are unlocked and unsupervised all weekend, but there's no thievery. "Sometimes someone picks up the wrong box," Peter says, "but 10 minutes later, he'll come running to apologize."

"The real disaster is to run short of food," says Mary-Lin, "so everyone orders too much, and there's a ton left over Sunday night. Over the years, Peter was instrumental in persuading teams to donate their leftovers to nearby homeless shelters."

Mary-Lin met Peter when he was working for Goodyear Racing at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal. "He was at a bar with Gilles Villeneuve," she remembers, "and they asked me to have dinner. Before we finished, the boys got into a food fight. Somehow I was attracted to that."

She and Peter opened a pub called Skittles, which taught them the rudiments of food preparation. "So then when I'd go to the track with Peter for tire tests," she recalls, "I'd make sandwiches for the guys — Leo Mehl, Keke Rosberg, Mario Andretti."

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*AccuPayment estimates payments under various scenarios for budgeting and informational purposes only. AccuPayment does not state credit or lease terms that are available from a creditor or lessor, and AccuPayment is not an offer or promotion of a credit or lease transaction.